Natal

How to spell natal

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce natal

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does natal mean?

1. adjectiveRelating to the place or time of a person's birth.

Natal in a sentence

• Her natal records listed the hospital where she was born.

• Her natal city was recorded clearly on the passport application.

Where does natal come from?

Language of origin: Latin

This word comes from the Latin natalis, meaning 'relating to birth', which was built on natus, the past participle of the verb nasci, 'to be born'. The same nasci root literally described the moment of coming into the world, and it spread widely through Latin into many English descendants. English adopted natal in the late 1300s, largely through scholarly and astrological use, where a person's 'natal' star or day described the conditions at the time of their birth. The very same root still sits inside the familiar words 'native', 'nativity', 'nature', and 'innate', all of which trace back to that idea of being born. Remembering that connection to 'native' helps fix the single t and the plain -al ending, since natal looks deceptively like the unrelated word 'natial' that some writers wrongly imagine.

How the word is built

• nat- (born, from Latin nasci 'to be born')
• -al (adjective suffix)